


Shapeshifting

by AlacritiousEidolon (p_3a)



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Cissexism, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a/pseuds/AlacritiousEidolon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrathion explains to a curious adventurer what it's like to be able to change forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shapeshifting

**Author's Note:**

> For clarification purposes: Wrathion is a transgender man.

A-well! At first, it was rather like… I don’t suppose you’ve ever  _been_  so dreadfully uncomfortable in your own body that you’d sooner cut it to pieces than inhabit it a minute longer, but taking a human form for the first time was very much  _like_  that. My lack of wings and tail for balance, my growing horns gone (permanently, I worried), my claws reduced to mere nails that would crack and break under any strenuous scratching of any variety… It was a nightmare, you understand, made worse by the  _teasing_  and  _patronisation_  that came with having such a  _diminutive_  form, let alone one with such  _mismatched_  features. I was in a child’s body, very definitely that of a little  _girl_ , and my scales were still very much evident in my face and hands. Only my low centre of gravity saved my rapidly shifted sense of balance.

My talents grew quickly. They don’t call me a prodigy for nothing, you know. Within a month, I was acquainted enough with the process to have begun altering it. I developed an adult form to match my mind, more visibly masculine the same way (although at the time I still had very little idea of the absurd weight you mortals put on  _genitalia_  as a determination of gender). I grew better at hiding my draconic features - something that would come in handy should I ever have to pass unnoticed as a mortal, as Fahrad seemed so oddly insistent that I would need to do one day - and I grew more comfortable with naming my humanoid form as belonging to  _me_.

I  _took_  this humanoid form and I  _conquered_  it. I made it  _conform_  to my will and I made it  _mine_. My piercings, what few tattoos I possess, any  _scars_  I chose to allow to linger - all to the same end. It says: “this is  _mine_ ”. And I will have no words with  _anyone_  who seeks to control it - just like the rest of me.

I would hardly say shapeshifting is as natural to me these days as breathing, but it’s certainly a more comfortable affair. I still need to concentrate on it, of course, I’m not an ancient drake like my mother - but it’s more like changing one’s state of mind between personas than entirely changing my essence against my will, as it felt the first time.


End file.
